Marcus Heywood entered his brother’s chamber and slammed the door shut behind him.
“How could you let this happen?” he demanded.
Reginald wilted under his regard. “Marcus, you know I would never—”
“But you did. You penned that cursed missive, so this disaster is your making,” Marcus interrupted. He had nursed the cold fury within him for the past two days, and he would not be gainsaid. “I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read the advertisement in the Edinburgh Courant. The next day I expected to read a retraction, but instead I find an entire column devoted to my private affairs. What were you thinking?”
He paced back and forth across the small bedchamber, unable to stay still.
Reginald rose to face his brother. He swallowed, and then began. “Yes, I penned that foolish advertisement. And the next morning, after you left, I was still in my cups when I gave the bootboy what I thought was the advertisement for the kennel master, and bade him bring it to the newspaper office without delay. If I had waited until I was sober enough to read what I had written, I could have avoided this whole mess. But what’s done is done. I take full blame for what happened.”
This much Marcus had been able to reason out for himself. He could still taste the bitter shock he had felt, when opening up the newspaper, he had turned to the commercial notices. Fully expecting to read the announcement that Marcus Heywood sought a new kennel master for the Greenfields estate, he had nearly choked on his coffee when he read the notice for a wife that Reginald had penned in jest.
“But why was there no explanation of the mistake? I expected to see an immediate retraction, and instead I find it treated with all seriousness, and news of my desperate search for a bride is carried in every paper,” Marcus demanded.
Suddenly weary, he threw himself into a chair, stretching his long legs before him.
After a long look to judge his brother’s temper, Reginald resumed his own seat.
“For that, there is blame to share. The advertisement was printed in the afternoon edition. I was engaged to dine with Mark Clemens and a few others of his acquaintance that evening, and we then went to the opera. It was early morning before I returned to my rooms, and I did not know what had happened till someone mentioned it the next evening. By then, it was in all the Edinburgh papers. A correspondent had spoken with Mr. Forsythe, who was all too willing to confirm the details of our late cousin’s will. Once I learned what had happened, I went to James McGregor. He was able to convince the Courant to cease printing the advertisement, but they were unwilling to print a retraction. They claimed they were unable to do so without your written confirmation. If truth be told, I think they knew the lie for what it was, but were far more interested in selling papers than in reporting the truth.”
It was well known that scandals sold newspapers, and what could be more scandalous than a peer of the realm advertising for a bride? It was small wonder that the rival newspapers had soon joined in spreading the scurrilous tale.
“I wrote to the newspapers denouncing this as a hoax, and sent the letters by express messenger,” Marcus said.
“I have not seen them,” Reginald responded. “Perhaps they will be printed in this evening’s editions.”
Or perhaps not. He would have to speak with James McGregor, and see what could be done. Could he sue the newspapers for libel? But doing so would reveal that his brother Reginald had penned the false missive, and that would make him seem even more the fool. It was an impossible tangle.
He rubbed his face with his hands, as his weariness finally caught up with him. He had ridden hard, making the journey from Greenfields to Edinburgh in a mere day and a half. And yet with each mile he had ridden, he had known he was already too late. The brush of scandal had tarred him and his family, and it would take a long time before this tale was forgotten.
“Surely the scandal will die down once there is news of your marriage to Miss Dunne,” Reginald said.
“If only that were true, I would indeed be a fortunate man,” Marcus observed. “However Alice Dunne has made other plans. You remember Samuel Makepeace, do you not? He has accepted a position in London, to preach the gospel of Wesley to the ungodly poor. Miss Dunne has agreed to accompany him, as his wife.”
“Oh,” Reginald said, at a loss for words.
“Indeed,” Marcus replied.
He had been surprised to find that Alice Dunne had spent these years awaiting another. It had been a blow to his pride, if not his heart. Still he had managed to sincerely congratulate her upon her forthcoming marriage, even as he wondered how she could prefer the life of an impoverished missionary to that of a noblewoman.
It was a stroke of luck that he had learned of her impending marriage before he made a fool of himself by offering for her. He could only wonder what the Dunnes now thought of him. Surely they knew him well enough to know that he was the victim of a dreadful hoax.
“I confess I am at a loss as to how to proceed,” Marcus said. Reginald was one of the few people that he trusted enough to confide in. “James McGregor was not in his offices when I called there, but his clerk promised to send him over here as soon as he returned. Until then…”
“Until then, you had best keep to our rooms, as I have for these past days,” Reginald said. “The Porters have done a fine job in barring correspondents from the common room, but they were lurking outside the entrance and in the streets. It was a mercy you were not accosted when you came into the inn.”
“I am fortunate that they did not recognize me,” Marcus said. “No doubt that will change soon enough.”
Any hopes that Mr. James McGregor would find a way out of this mess were dashed when his solicitor arrived later that afternoon. Friends since their days at school together, James wasted no time on pleasantries, but instead came swiftly to the point.
“I tell you, Marcus, I don’t see how this affair could be made any worse,” James McGregor said. He placed a bulging satchel on the scarred wooden table of the sitting room, and then took a seat opposite Marcus.
Mr. Porter came in, bearing a tray with three tankards of ale. As Reginald closed the door behind the innkeeper, James took a long drink of his ale.
Reginald picked up his own tankard, and retreated to a seat at the far end of the table. Marcus had asked him to join them, but Reginald was still wary, acting as if he were waiting for Marcus or James to remind him that he was the cause of this current predicament.
“Is there no way to free myself from this tangle?” Marcus asked. “If we could invalidate the will then there would be no need to worry about this marriage. I could simply go back to Greenfields, and wait for the scandal to die down.”
The faint hope he had nourished for the past days died as James McGregor sadly shook his head. “Forsythe may be an ass, but he is no fool. The will has no obvious defect. Of course you could always find some grounds to challenge it on, but such a challenge could take years to work its way through the chancery courts. And until that day—”
“And until that distant date I would still be responsible for my late cousin’s debts,” Marcus said.
“Indeed. I took the liberty of reviewing the situation with two colleagues whom I trust, and their opinions match my own. Pursuing a challenge to the will would be a waste of time and money, and in the end, it is more than likely that the court would decide to uphold the original will.”
Marcus took a sip of dark ale, the bitter taste providing a fine match to his dark thoughts.
“Which means I must be married before the fortnight is over.”
James McGregor nodded. “A damn shame, but I see no other course. Unless you care to give up the inheritance and refuse payment of your cousin’s debts?”
For a brief moment he was tempted, but he pushed the unworthy thought aside. No matter what society thought of him at the moment, Marcus knew himself to be an honorable man. And he would continue to behave as such, regardless of the personal cost.
“No, I can not do that. I will have to find a bride who is willing to take me.”
James McGregor blinked. “But your brother said you had a bride in mind?”
“I did. But she had her eye on another,” Marcus said, his neutral tone giving no hint of the humiliation he felt. He had been well paid for his vanity, for all those years he had spent imagining that he had only to make his decision and his chosen bride would be his. Instead, not even his new fortune and title were enough to win her regard.
James McGregor tactfully looked away, refusing to catch his eye.
There was a long silence, as the three contemplated Marcus’s problem.
“I don’t suppose you have any suggestions?” Reginald asked.
“The newspaper reports have made things difficult,” James McGregor said diplomatically.
“You mean to say it has made the matter impossible,” Marcus countered. “My character has been blackened and my name made into a laughingstock. What woman of good character or sense would want to involve herself in such a scandal? If you had a daughter, would you want her to marry a gentleman with my reputation?”
“Marcus, I know you will make a fine husband, and if my own sister was of age, I would recommend you to her without hesitation.”
Alas, Julia McGregor was still in the schoolroom, and would not be ready for marriage for some years yet.
“And if you did not know me so well?”
“Then, well then, I suppose, I would have doubts,” James McGregor said.
It was an honest answer. Marcus respected his friend for his bluntness.
“So my position is impossible,” Marcus declared.
“Not quite. There are, after all, hundreds of women who are willing to fill the position. I have letters from as far away as Wales, from young women eager to become the next Duchess of Torringford.”
James McGregor unbuckled the straps on his satchel, and reaching in, withdrew two stacks of paper, one large and one small, each tied up with blue ribbon.
“Have you gone mad?” Marcus demanded.
“Who knows what kind of women replied to this advertisement?” Reginald asked. “Surely only a woman of dubious character and morals would even consider writing to a stranger in this fashion.”
“That is what I thought as well,” James McGregor said. “And indeed, most of the letters appear to be from women who meet none of the qualifications you listed. But there were a few I thought promising.”
Marcus swallowed heavily. He could not be hearing this. This was not happening. It was all an insane dream, and at any moment he would wake up. “James, are you recommending that I choose my bride from among those lackwits who responded to that insane advertisement?”
“Do you have a better plan?”
Indeed he did not, which was why he was so angry. “I would do just as well to propose to the first woman I met on the street.”
“Such a plan has its own risks. I realize this is strange, but I can see no alternative. At least you know the women who wrote are willing to take you on, despite the scandal.”
“So how do we proceed? A lottery?” Reginald asked.
“No,” James McGregor said, fixing Reginald with a stern look. “I have taken the liberty of selecting a half-dozen candidates who live within a day’s journey of Edinburgh. If you agree, I will invite each of them for an interview.”
“And if none of them suit?”
“Then you are no worse off than before,” James McGregor countered.
It was sheer folly, and yet the idea had a certain appeal. After all he was not committing to marry any of these women. Just to meet them. How difficult could that be?
“And you think one of these would make a suitable bride?”
James McGregor withdrew the top letter and handed it to him. “See for yourself,” he said.
“Miss Penelope Hastings,” Marcus said, glancing at the elegantly penned missive. “A gentlewoman of one-and-twenty years. Modesty is not one of her virtues, although she does describe herself as skilled at household management, and as a patroness of the arts.”
James McGregor nodded. “I will admit I was surprised to find her among those who responded. Miss Hastings is from a fine old Edinburgh family. She has an unsullied reputation, and is well thought of among the literary set.”
“And yet she writes to offer herself in marriage to a stranger,” Marcus said.
Such recklessness did not speak well of either her intelligence or her common sense. And this woman was one of the best candidates that McGregor had been able to find. He shuddered to think of those candidates who had not met McGregor’s standards.
Still, what choice did he have?
“You win,” he said. “I will meet this paragon Miss Hastings, and a half-dozen others you find unobjectionable. We will give this scheme of yours a chance.”
And if this did not work, he could always make his way to the market square in Old Town, and offer himself for sale to the highest bidder. Such folly could hardly damage his reputation any further.